On today's mobile networks, it is desirable to provide fast, responsive mobile video. However, this is technically challenging because video requires high data rates and low latency. As well, handling a small number of video streams is relatively simple, but as the number of video streams goes up, the bandwidth required increases as a multiple of the number of streams, which rapidly becomes unsustainable with tens or hundreds of users watching multi-megabit video streams.
One traditional way that video performance can be improved is by caching popular video files and serving them from a content cache, which can be located at the edge of the public Internet or within the operator core network, e.g., at a content delivery network (CDN). The content cache can be accessed via the operator core network with lower latency and with fewer throughput issues on its way to the operator core network. However, this approach does not provide any particular advantages for dealing with the constraints of mobile backhaul and the mobility management required for supporting wireless mobile users.